An Urban Teacher's Education: SOS Conference 2012, Day Three

An Urban Teacher's Education: SOS Conference 2012, Day Three:

SOS Conference 2012, Day Three

by James Boutin

This morning, I began the day by attending a session led by Monty Neill and Bob George where attendees offered suggestions for how Save Our Schools might adapt its policy recommendation literature for policymakers and the public.

Rose Sanders speaks

Over and over again, in the session and throughout the conference, participants railed against high-stakes testing as the illusion on which corporate reform is standing. I felt this to be the area in which we had largest consensus. As Tim Slekar put it (to paraphrase), "This is a hill to die on. Don't accept test scores as valid indicators of student learning, teaching quality or school quality. Not even a little bit. There's not one shred of evidence they tell us anything except for what zip code they come from and who their parents are."

It was during this session I realized the term "high-stakes testing" is really an oxymoron in a way. If it's high-